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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 185 / Tuesday, September 28, 2021 / Proposed Rules contain the physical or biological features that are essential to the conservation of the species and that may require special management considerations, or 2 are unoccupied at the time of listing and are essential for the conservation of the species;
d Special management considerations or protection that may be needed in critical habitat areas we are proposing, including managing for the potential effects of climate change; and e What areas not occupied at the time of listing are essential for the conservation of the species. We particularly seek comments:
i Regarding whether occupied areas are adequate for the conservation of the species;
ii Providing specific information regarding whether or not unoccupied areas would, with reasonable certainty, contribute to the conservation of the species and contain at least one physical or biological feature essential to the conservation of the species; and iii Explaining whether or not unoccupied areas fall within the definition of habitat at 50 CFR 424.02
and why.
7 Land use designations and current or planned activities in the subject areas and their possible impacts on proposed critical habitat.
8 Any probable economic, national security, or other relevant impacts of designating any area that may be included in the final designation, and the related benefits of including or excluding specific areas.
9 Information on the extent to which the description of probable economic impacts in the draft economic analysis is a reasonable estimate of the likely economic impacts.
10 Information on land ownership within proposed critical habitat areas, particularly Tribal land ownership allotments, trust, and/or fee so that the Service may best implement Secretarial Order 3206 American Indian Tribal Rights, Federal-Tribal Trust Responsibilities, and the Endangered Species Act.
11 Whether any specific areas we are proposing for critical habitat designation should be considered for exclusion under section 4b2 of the Act, and whether the benefits of potentially excluding any specific area outweigh the benefits of including that area under section 4b2 of the Act.
Specific information we seek includes information on any conservation plans within the proposed designated critical habitat areas that provide conservation for the Penasco least chipmunk and its habitat. For any additional areas that you may request be excluded from the
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designation, we will undertake an exclusion analysis if you provide credible information regarding the existence of a meaningful economic or other relevant impact supporting a benefit of inclusion or if we otherwise decide to exercise the discretion to evaluate the areas for possible exclusion.
12 Whether we could improve or modify our approach to designating critical habitat in any way to provide for greater public participation and understanding, or to better accommodate public concerns and comments.
13 Ongoing or proposed conservation efforts that could result in direct or indirect ecological benefits to the associated habitat for the species; as such, those efforts would lend to the recovery of the species and therefore areas covered may be considered for exclusion from the final critical habitat designation.
Please include sufficient information with your submission such as scientific journal articles or other publications to allow us to verify any scientific or commercial information you include.
Please note that submissions merely stating support for, or opposition to, the action under consideration without providing supporting information, although noted, will not be considered in making a determination, as section 4b1A of the Act directs that determinations as to whether any species is an endangered or a threatened species must be made solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available.
You may submit your comments and materials concerning this proposed rule by one of the methods listed in ADDRESSES. We request that you send comments only by the methods described in ADDRESSES.
If you submit information via https
www.regulations.gov, your entire submissionincluding any personal identifying informationwill be posted on the website. If your submission is made via a hardcopy that includes personal identifying information, you may request at the top of your document that we withhold this information from public review. However, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.
We will post all hardcopy submissions on https www.regulations.gov.
Comments and materials we receive, as well as supporting documentation we used in preparing this proposed rule, will be available for public inspection on https www.regulations.gov.

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Public Hearing Section 4b5 of the Act provides for a public hearing on this proposal, if requested. Requests must be received by the date specified above in DATES. Such requests must be sent to the address shown in FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT. We will schedule a public hearing on this proposal, if requested, and announce the date, time, and place of the hearing, as well as how to obtain reasonable accommodations, in the Federal Register and local newspapers at least 15 days before the hearing. For the immediate future, we will provide these public hearings using webinars that will be announced on the Services website, in addition to the Federal Register. The use of these virtual public hearings is consistent with our regulations at 50 CFR 424.16c3.
Previous Federal Actions WildEarth Guardians petitioned us to list Penasco least chipmunk in October 2011. The Service published a substantial 90-day finding and a warranted but precluded 12-month finding on November 21, 2012 77 FR
69994, stating that listing of the subspecies was warranted due to the present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range and the fragmentation and isolation of small populations. In 2018, we completed a species status assessment SSA to provide the biological support for a decision on whether or not to propose to list the subspecies as threatened or endangered under the Act and, if so, where to propose designating critical habitat.
This proposed listing rule also constitutes our 12-month petition finding for the species.
Supporting Documents A species status assessment SSA
team prepared an SSA report for the Penasco least chipmunk. The SSA team was composed of Service biologists, in consultation with other species experts.
The SSA report represents a compilation of the best scientific and commercial data available concerning the status of the species, including the impacts of past, present, and future factors both negative and beneficial affecting the species. The Service sent the SSA report to five independent peer reviewers, and three provided a review of the document. The Service also sent the SSA report to three partner agencies, including the State of New Mexico, U.S.
Forest Service, and the Mescalero Apache Tribe, for review. We received reviews from the U.S. Forest Service and the State of New Mexico.

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